Curtis Stone Explains Why You Should Be Cooking With Crab More Often - Exclusive
If you're a fan of "Iron Chef: Quest for an Iron Legend," you know Curtis Stone. The Austrailian-born chef has been cooking since he was four years old and now has two Michelin-star restaurants in Los Angeles: One that's a fine dining experience currently immersed in seafood while the other is a high-end restaurant and butcher shop. With focuses like that, it's safe to say the chef enjoys cooking with proteins. But in a recent interview at the newly opened Netflix pop-up restaurant, Netflix Bites, Stone told us that his absolute favorite protein to cook with is crab.
"I love crab," Stone says emphatically. "You know, everyone talks about lobster as the pinnacle. But I'm like, when you compare lobster to crab, crab wins all day long. It's tender, it melts, it's got a sweetness. You can serve it in the shell [or] you can take it out," he continues. In fact, the crab curry that Stone made last year on an episode of "Iron Chef" is part of the Netflix Bites menu because he "loves that dish."
Crab can be used in a variety of different ways
If you don't have time to get over to Curtis Stone's restaurants to try his seafood dishes, the chef has several recommendations for preparing crab. But his first choice is definitely crab curry. "I love crab curry," he exclaims. Typically made with crab, onions, tomatoes, vegetable or seafood stock, and various herbs and spices, this is a dish that Stone calls "a one-pot wonder" that can then be served in the pot with couscous, rice, or flatbread.
But if curry isn't your cup of tea, Stone says that a crab salad is a nice alternative as well. "That's the thing about crab, you can also do, like, a really delicate, citrus salad, that's got a light vinaigrette that shows off the sweetness and served chilled, right? And then you can dip it in butter and eat it like that as well," he explains. "So yeah, it's a versatile ingredient."